I have great dreams that I can grow fruit at Wild Estate - the property at the back of us has apples and figs, and I saw a lemon tree not far from us the other day heavy with fruit. I got a bunch of raspberry and currant canes from a lady in the next suburb that had more fruit than she could deal with. So it can be done here in Wellington, where we have a rather, shall we say, special climate. But I have yet to have any real success with the two Meyer lemon trees and Tahitian lime we were given as housewarming gifts, and my blueberries and raspberries were in such a sad state from my putting them in bad spots, attacks on their roots by chooks and generally inadequate care by me, that they produced sweet nothing-at-all over the summer and autumn.
My in-laws have grapefruit, feijoa, peaches, and mandarins, but they're in Auckland where things just seem to burst out of the ground. My mother-in-law bottles peaches and freezes feijoa and brings us fruit by the bagful when they visit. By contrast, getting anything fruity to grow here seems to take a Herculean effort.
So hallelujah for Andrew Steens, whose book Grow It Yourself: Fruit and Nuts (RRP $39.99) should hopefully arm me with all the knowledge to replicate my neighbours' (and perhaps even my in-laws') successes. It's an extremely thorough book - the first book I've seen to go into detail about climate throughout New Zealand (though it doesn't say anything about Wellington, which worries me). It also goes into detail about soil, space and how you can plan your orchard on variously sized plots.
But what I like most of all is how the book investigates various varieties of each plant, so you know what to look for when you go shopping for new bushes and canes, as sometimes the details on the tags can be fairly vague. It's also gives comprehensive advice on what each plant needs. I don't feel like I need to consult a tonne of books before planting something out, or amending the soil before buying my plant, or building a bed to plant it out in. It's all in one place.
What it is a little light on is pictures. There's a really great section on pests and diseases, but I like to see what each thing looks like - a description of botrytis doesn't really do it for me. Despite that, this is definitely a bible for fruit growers; it will be my first port of call for anything to do with fruit from now on.
We have two copies of Grow It Yourself Fruit & Nuts to give away. Just leave a comment telling me about your fruit growing efforts. Do you struggle like I do, or are do you have enough to bottle and share? What are your tips?
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Sounds like a good book! I too have dreams of more fruit. We're in Welly and have pear, plum and apple trees, all very old and not in the best condition, but they produce. Our prolific lemon sadly died and kind parents gave me a new one - which has been planted in a different place - still small, but has about 11 small, green lemons. Probably supposed to remove them but... Also grow strawbs and have a blueberry and some other berry canes, of which the raspberry has been best so far. Slow progress. At least they didn't all get blown away!
I planted my stone fruit trees in the wrong place and in hind sight, and as a consequence they are prone to fungi. On the upside they do grow lots of fruit which I don't quite get to bottling.
I'm new to gardening but still managed to go overboard with tomatoes and spent what felt like every waking moment bottling, stewing, making soups, chutneys and paste till I was sick of them. Our fruit trees are new so we're not having too much of an excess of fruit off them yet.
We are in Christchurch and have one lemon and one manderian tree and we struggle. We have frost protection for them, any help we can get would be helpful.
Our fruit tree's are 3 years old now so they started to produce last season. There was enough to make jam, bake, eat fresh and give away. Next year we'll be begging people to take some fruit :) We're lucky though to have excellent soil in the area we've planted our orchard. It really does make a difference!
We have a lot of trouble growing fruit trees in Auckland. The establised ones do really well, but the other fruit trees we've planted look sick. Rhubarb grows like crazy though!
I have excess fruit from my 2 apples with grafts on top, so actually have 4 varieties, then I also have 2 pear trees, also with grafts on top, I have a gorgous Golden King peach which fruits madly every year, 2 dwarf peach tress which also have masses of fruit, 2 dwarf nectarines also masses of fruit an 1 normal old fashion nectarine which will get the chop if it doesnt pull its sox up! All my trees are trained to weep, as I have a small section I cant have big trees, So I tie down the new growth each year, makes it much easier to reach all that fruit, I bottle as much as I can for myself an give all the rest of the fruit away, which gives me great pleasure, an even the posty, rubbish collector an recycling guys just love comeing to my place in summer, they know what will be waiting for them for morning tea!
Hi, I live in Rangiora which is in North Canterbury and have quite a few fruit trees which up to now I have grown in pots and have done not to bad, I try and stick to natural fertilizers and make my own compost and pick up free horse manure, my blue berries start off doing well but then one will die and have learnt after many re buys that they are prone to fungi and need spraying,
I have some very young fruit trees, planted last year, and so far have had one plum and one apple and a few mini peaches. I have had a rather surprising crop of passionfruit and have a few lemons which look like they might be doing somethign on our tiny lemon tree. I have dreams of baskets of fresh fruit straight off the tree and bottles of preserves. But this is yet to materialise. I am still trying to acquire my gardeners patience and the skills to help my trees be as strong as possible. And I need to figure out how to stake them so they will stay upright in the wellington winds!
My fruit growing efforts equate those of any sort of growing effort. Generally a dismal failure....but then my wife comes along and rescues me (and more importantly, the plants).